President Street Project

Updates

About the Project

Mobilization has begun for the 30-month project to rebuild President Street and General McIntosh Boulevard. Using this webpage, our goal is to provide timely updates to residents through the length of the project on both traffic impacts and progress reports on these critical improvements to our roadway and drainage infrastructure.

The major aspects of the project include:

Raising the elevation of President Street and General McIntosh between 5 and 8 feet to alleviate street flooding. Currently, the roadway - one of the County’s major hurricane evacuation routes - floods during heavy tides and rainfall events.

Creation of new signalized intersections onto properties to the north and south of President Street, which is necessary before development can begin on these properties.

Reconfiguration of the intersection of General McIntosh and President Street.

Construction of a bridge over an expanded Bilbo Canal, which will improve drainage through much of the greater downtown area.

New landscaping and pedestrian-friendly features will enhance the appearance of this major gateway into Savannah, including stamped brick crosswalks at the new intersections and sidewalks along both sides of President Street.

The first phase of this project began in January of 2015, and included reconstruction of a sewer force main at East Broad Street and Oglethorpe Avenue. In February, the project moved off East Broad Street and major work to East President Street and General McIntosh Boulevard began.

More than 100,000 cubic yards of fill dirt will be trucked in and dumped and graded along the south side of President Street, where it will sit idle for up to 180 days during a process called surcharging. This surcharging is required to allow settling and water extraction prior to the laying of utilities.

Three major traffic impacts will occur beginning in February:

Travel lanes will be reduced to two lanes in each direction on President during construction. The temporary travel lanes will be narrower in width than the current lanes.

Due to the need to keep two travel lanes open at all times, we will have to eliminate the turn lane onto southbound Truman Parkway during much of the construction. This means there will be no Truman access from eastbound President Street. Northbound Truman Parkway traffic will still be able to exit onto President Street, and the Truman can still be accessed from westbound President. But downtown traffic wanting to get on the Truman will be detoured south on Wheaton Street to the Anderson Street on-ramp.

General McIntosh Boulevard will be closed to through traffic. Traffic will instead continue on President Street to East Broad Street. Access to the Savannah Riverfront Marriot will remain open from Bay Street throughout the project.